Pirate King
by shadowwriter01
Summary: The Straw hats have reached the final island of the Grand Line and are standing before the One Piece. Now it s fate and that of the Pirate King will be decided.
1. Chapter 1: Luffy

**Disclaimer:** I don´t own One Piece.

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Pirate King

_Raftael, last island of the Grand Line_

He was Monkey D. Luffy and like so often in the last years, he was in a fight.

This was it. He knew this fight would maybe be his greatest. Okay, maybe the great battle against the navy a few days ago had been bigger, but there his crew hadn´t been alone. They had Shanks with them and his father Dragon and their other allies from the New World.

This fight was his and his crews alone. But he knew it would probably also be his last really great one.

Their great adventure that had started over three years ago would be over. He had to smile about this, he actually grinned his enemy in the face, careless like always.

It nearly made him sad that this should be the end.

xxxxxxx

_A few minutes earlier_

The Straw Hats were standing in the middle of a valley on the last island of the Grand Line. They all stared at the object before them. This was One Piece, Gold Roger´s writing close to it proved it.

They should have anticipated something like that, after everything they knew.

But despite that Luffy was somehow clueless about what this meant, so he did what he always did in such a situation and asked Robin.

In that moment they heard a laughing hall through the valley, one Luffy only knew all too well. The Straw Hats turned around and saw a group of ten men standing a few hundred meters behind them.

"Blackbeard," Nami called out.

"Damn right," the man yelled in his typical manner.

He looked at the object behind them.

"So this is it," he said, "the thing we all had been looking for. Not exactly what I expected," He thought for a moment, "but hell, no reason to worry about."

Then he turned around to Luffy, the two men were looking from the distance at each other.

Luffy had as soon as he had seen his enemy fallen into his serious stand, physically like mentally, the one he showed only in battle, when he was not a goofball for a short time.

He remembered what he had promised, first Shanks and later Ace.

He would not lose, certainly not to the one who delivered Ace to the Marines.

"It looks as if I come too late to become the second Pirate King, Monkey D. Luffy, so I guess I will have to become the third," Blackbeard exclaimed and laughed again,

"by killing you here and taking One Piece for myself", he called out.

"Okay Blackbeard, you can try," Luffy answered him.

The two crews charge at each other

xxxxxxx

_A few minutes later_

Luffy and Teach stood in opposite to each other. They looked each other in the eyes.

Both captains had already exchanged several hard blows till now.

Blackbeard had a few times tried to catch Luffy with his darkness, but he had used the color of armaments to counter the attacks.

The ground around them had been shaking under Blackbeard´s earth-quake powers, but Luffy still outmatched him in terms of speed.

Neither of them could gain a clear advantage about the other.

Both men were panting heavily now.

They looked each other in the eyes and Luffy smiled. Soon it would be over.

It would be over and he would be Pirate King. There was nothing else.

He prepared the next attack.


	2. Chapter 2: Zoro

A few minutes ago Lorenor Zoro had been standing before the One Piece, together with the rest of his crew.

So this was it, the end point of their entire journey, the aim of their dreams.

He had nearly laughed out as he had seen what exactly it was. They should have suspected it. Since their first meeting with Reyleigh they should have suspected this.

The "greatest treasure in the world" indeed.

Not gold, silver or jewelry, but something far more precious.

The aim of their dreams?

For him the true finale had already happened two days ago.

At the end of the Grant Line the Marines had ambushed them with a giant fleet, with a single goal, keep Luffy from obtaining the One Piece and become Pirate King.

That and to destroy Monkey D. Luffy and Red Hair Shanks.

Luffy had met his old friend again somewhere in the middle of the New World and the Younko had obviously wanted to be present at the last part of Luffy´s journey. He and a fleet of his followers had met them a short distance before Raftael.

And there the marines had attempted an surprise attack on them.

All three Admirals had been there and Fleet Admiral Sakazuki who was leading the fleet in person, a army of pacifista, several Vice Admirals and the Shichibukai who had still been considered as "loyal" by the government.

As far as they could have ever been considered as loyal in the first place. All of them were assembled to wipe both pirate crews out once and for all.

But their attack had not been such an "surprise" as the marines wanted it to be. A short time before them Luffy´s father Dragon appeared and had warned them. He said that his spies in the World Government had informed him about the planned attack. **His** presence during the battle however was truly a surprise for everyone, even the Straw Hats themselves.

During the battle Luffy was facing Sakazuki himself while Shanks, Dragon and Sanji took care of the other Admirals. With the appearance of the revolution leader they had now an advantage when it came to top fighters.

And the use of the Shichibukai had turned out less effective as the World Government had anticipated.

Luffy´s friend Boa Hancock had, right in the middle of the battle, turned her ship´s cannons around and attacked the Marines instead.

But the Shichibukai who was really important for Zoro was another one.

Mihawk had also been there for the single reason to fight Lorenor Zorro, as he had declared himself. In his title as Shichibukai on the other hand, he seemed less than interested these days.

Zoro remembered the fight. It had started out on board of one of the Marine ships.

As he and Mihawk clashed with full force, that ship had been accidentally destroyed. Zoro countered an attack from his opponent and the diverged strike ripped through the ship´s body and slashed it nearly in half. The deck under them literally exploded.

When the first ship was sinking they continued the fight on board as long as they could and then jumped to the next and so forth.

They jumped from one vessel of the Marine fleet to the other. Missed strikes of both of them cut off mast, devastated the deck and in some cases destroyed entire battle-ships.

An assura attack from Zoro caused the command-bridge of the one they were standing on to explode into a tornado of shrapnel and a long range attack from Mihawk missed Zoro by a meter and hit another marine ship instead, that was cleanly cut in two halves.

Finally it came that far that one of the Marine officer yelled to Mihawk that they would revoke his Shichibukai status if he wasn´t more careful. He simply told the man in his typical manner that this dual for the title of best swordsman was far more important than his Shichibukai status and that it had become boring anyway. Then he said that the man should better not come between them if he knew what was bad for him.

The Marine backed off obviously frightened, but he seemed to murmur something like this would be having consequences.

Not that Zoro cared anyway.

He remembered how the fight ended. Finally he had managed to overcome Mihawk. Zoro´s attack caught the best swordsman and brought his defenses down for a short time.

This short moment was more than enough for him. He dealt him a strike at the chest, ironically a very similar wound as Zoro had received in their first fight.

Mihawk then sank to his knees before him and the man smiled.

"I knew it", he said to him.

Zoro returned the smile while he was holding his swords on Mihawk´s throat. It was now on him what would happen, both of them knew this.

Then he took his weapons down and said to his opponent that he would like to fight him again some day.

xxx

At the same time Sakazuki was overcome more and more by Luffy and finally defeated by him. As he saw he was loosing he refused to accept it and attacked the Straw Hat captain in a wild rage with a giant magma fist.

This however was countered by Luffy with a haki infused elephant gun. For a short moment the two giant attacks struggled with each other until Sakazuki´s magma broke apart. The gear 3 technique broke through the logia element and together with the rests of his own magmas that was thrown back at him, slammed into the place where Sakazuki was standing. He and the entire ship around him were destroyed.

That was the last that had been seen of the Fleet Admiral.

xxx

After the battle was over, the Straw Hat crew continued their way to Raftael. They all knew that it was the last part of their travel.

Shanks had told Luffy as goodbye, something about going and fulfilling his destiny.

They had made the rest of their way in another two days, they had found the last island and they were now standing before the One Piece.

Then Blackbeard and his crew had appeared and challenged them, something else that shouldn´t have really surprised them.

They had obviously used the chaos of the battle to get around both the Marines and the pirate fleet unseen.

He was the greatest swordsman in the world and he had already to fight for his title with his life. Zoro was right now involved in a struggle with Shiryu.

Blackbeard´s swordsman was good, very good and he himself had barely recovered from his fight with Mihawk. As much as Zoro hated to admit it, he had problems. He was getting more and more in the defense.

But he would certainly not give up now. He prepared himself to use his nine-sword technic. Hopefully this would give him an edge against this enemy.

He could see Shiryu´s surprise as him seemingly grew two other heads and four new arms. Then he stroke with his full strength.


	3. Chapter 3: Robin

What Nico Robin was always searching for was the true history of the world, the truth that had been lost centuries ago and that the World Government wanted to hide at every price. She had later joined Luffy in the hope that together they could fulfill both of their dreams.

Now Robin was standing before the One Piece, looking at it.

She knew that their journey had come to an end.

They had finally found the fulfillment of all their dreams, the One Piece, she thought.

Not only Luffy´s but also hers. She had suspected it, from the moment she was standing on Skypia and looking at Gold Roger´s signature, she did.

Since their conversation with Reyleigh, she should have known.

But Luffy didn´t want to know from the beginning. He wanted to live his adventure completely. For him it wasn´t only about the treasure, but also about the way to get it and so they all went along with it.

Maybe even Luffy, who was not nearly half as stupid as he usually acted, had some suspicion. But of course he didn´t cared either way.

And so they didn´t knew for sure until now, that they were standing before the One Piece itself.

Finding it and becoming the Pirate King had always been Luffy´s dream, but without ever knowing it has also been hers.

The One Piece, the Rio Poneglyph, it was one and the same.

That was before them was the final piece. The true history is revealed to the one who is reading all the poneglyphs in the right order. But the last one was the key to everything, the way to understand them all. The last stone put all the others into context.

This object was named the One Piece. It was the one that showed the final fate of the ancient kingdom and the motive for the World Government to cover it all up.

The writing of Gold Roger himself in the stone proved it. The greatest treasure in the world, knowledge, the truth. Not gold or silver or diamonds or even weapons as most people would have expected.

The revelation what really was behind the facades of this world or at least the last piece of it and a knowledge that could destroy the World Government, if it ever came out.

Something that wouldn´t even really been necesarry any more if Dragon would have success.

Finally she knew it, the truth about the history and why her people had to die. She wanted to cry and to laugh at the same time.

Then Blackbeard and his crew appeared.

It was of course too much to be asked for to be left alone at this moment, Robin thought.

The fight between the two crews began.

Many of the different crew members started to engage each other. Franky exchanged a few blows with Avalo Pizarro and Brook with Lafitte.

At the edge of the island, they saw Blackbeard´s Umibozu crew member, San Juan Wolf was his name, tower over them.

He raised his fist and was about to attack them. But Luffy countered. He jumped upwards and hit him with a haki infused gear 3 attack and the hyper giant went down.

Then, Luffy began to fight Blackbeard himself.


	4. Chapter 4: Usopp

Usopp was seeing the fighting going on before his eyes.

He had always wanted to become a "brave warrior of the sea". That was what he himself called it, a pirate sure, but one you could respect.

Like his father.

xxx

His father, he had finally seen him again after all this years, still as a part of Red haired Shanks crew.

It had been shocking how all his emotions he had stocked up in all this time came back to him at once,

pride about who the man was, anger that he was not there in all this years.

Ironically his father had always been his role-model. But he was also a man who had abandoned him and left him behind as a child. It was hard to deal with so many conflicting emotions.

As he finally saw the man, he didn´t knew what to say.

Usopp the liar, the man who was always able to make up a dozen fantastic stories, wasn´t able to get his mouth open in front of his own father.

A part of him wanted to threw his arms around him, seeing him again after so long,

another part wanted to shout at him for not being there in all this years and a third one wanted to run away like he did it so often before.

In the end they talked. It had been Usopp who said the first words, but it could have also easily have been the other way around.

"Hello father."

"Hello son."

That had been their first words to each other after nearly 13 years.

It turned out his father had the whole time been feeling exactly like him.

Like he, Yasopp didn´t knew how Usopp would react, what he would say, if he would forgive him for not being there the whole time.

Usopp remembered how he had actually started screaming at him a few minutes after meeting him.

He asked him where he had been as his mother died, why he never came back?

The same evening they were sitting with their crews, eating and drinking together. That was the first time they truly talked with each other, not just tried to talk their way out of a direct confrontation.

Yasopp had tried to explain to him how he had often wanted to come back, but always something interfered.

His crew needed him, the were in a fight with the Marines or another pirate crew, always something like that.

Usopp admitted, as a pirate he could somehow understand him, as a son, he could not.

Later he and Yasopp were fighting side by side against the Marines.

He admitted, he was nearly shocked out of his mind as Dragon suddenly appeared and told them that the government was planning an ambush on them with a major fleet, the admirals and an army of pacifista.

But with the warning and the help of the revolution leader they managed to turn the tide around and their enemies were caught in their own trap.

Dragon had actually told them that they had only been waiting for an opportunity like that.

Usopp smiled.

During the battle the Revolutionary had been able to send a command to the pacifista and shut them off, all of them.

By what Dragon had told them later, his command signal was transmitted, not only to the ones present, but to all pacifista units stationed anywhere.

Kuma, Usopp remembered, was that the reason he had volunteered to be turned into a cyborg?

Somehow, he realized, the revolutionaries had gotten access to the software of the human weapons of the government. Had Kuma sacrificed his life for this? Had this all been his plan?

Whatever, Usopp had to admit he was impressed. The pacifista were either suddenly standing still or falling from the sky like windfall.

That gave the pirates the upper hand in the fight.

World wide all the pacifista had simultaneous stopped working.

Dragon had told them after the battle that they had been waiting for them to be produced in great enough numbers and being spread far enough into the World Government forces, for them to reach enough critical positions and for the government to relying on them to keep their strength.

Then their loss would deal a crippling blow to their power, the start of the final campaign of the Revolutionary Army.

Then Dragon had left then to lead his forces.

The World Government was beaten on that day. It was probably the beginning of their end.

xxx

A brave warrior of the sea.

Now, like two days ago in the confrontation with the Marines, he had the chance to prove that he had actually become one.

In the last battle he had been fighting for the greatest part random Marines. This time he had an direct adversary,

Van Auger, Blackbeard´s master sniper.

They were in a direct dual with each other, at a very long range of course, since both were sharp shooters.

He saw Luffy in a struggle with Blackbeard, Zoro with the Swordsman, Robin with the woman of Blackbeard´s crew and Sanji with the long haired guy with the beard.

Usopp did what he could do best. He picked an opponent for himself, one of his caliber and used all his tricks and strength to keep him occupied while the other were fighting the rest,

Luffy, Zoro and Sanji usually against the greatest threats.

And then he would find a way to defeat his own enemy, no matter what it cost him.

Ussop saw an opening by his adversary. He took aim and fired.


	5. Chapter 5: Garp a Sengoku I

It was in a small chamber in the basement of the new Marine HQ.

A group of Marine officers was assembling here for a certain meeting.

It wasn´t the official sort of a meeting, it wasn´t even one that could be hold in the open.

The men who had called to it, the former Fleet Admiral Sengoku and Vice Admiral Garp, were sitting on the head of the table.

Despite their retired state had both of them still great influence under the Marines and so nearly all the invited officers came, even if they didn´t knew why.

The men who had been invited consisted of several ranks, Captains, Commodores, all up to Vice Admirals. Most of them didn´t knew yet what the topic would be and that was a good thing. Garp and Sengoku couldn´t have trusted anybody with more information prior to this day. They had only invited officers who in the pas, had shown to be trustworthy in this aspect, but you couldn´t be careful enough.

What was about to be discussed here was nothing else then possible treachery against the World Government.

For many it would have been a surprise that two of the most renowned Marines were now about to speak out against the organization they had served for decades, but it didn´t came from nowhere.

Garp had always disagreed with many of the policies of the World Government, but so far, until the Whitebeard War two and a half year ago, he had gone along with it in the hope to do his part, to stop dangerous pirates and help civilians.

He had been the hero of the Marines. Much later he had finally to admit, he was fooling himself.

Losing Ace had hurt. He had seen how AkaIno had killed his adopted grandson. Back then he was willing to murder him at the spot, but was held back by Sengoku.

But then he had witnessed what came afterwards. Whitebeard´s and Ace death had changed the world, but not for the better, by far not. All it had done was causing even more destruction and suffering.

Hundreds of islands, formerly under Whitebeard´s control, fell into chaos. He had done his best to protect his own homeland Goa from the effects, but countless others didn´t have that luxury. War, riots, pillaging, murder, rape and destruction, exactly the same things that the marines claim to fight against, caused by their own idiotic actions. A wave of absolute terror swept over a quarter of the Grand Line.

The World Government knew that would happen, the Marines knew, everybody knew and the just run into it with seeing eyes.

Sengoku told him how the government had simply covered up the escape of dozens of level 6 prisoners from Impel Down, the most dangerous criminals in the world, able to threaten entire countries. And the World Government didn´t care.

Thousands had died in the battle and thousands more afterwards. Ace had died, for what?

Neither Whitebeard or Ace had ever attacked unless provoked. As powerful as they were, none of them had shown hostile intentions outside of their territories.

Neither did Luffy or Red hair. None of them was a real threat for anyone beside the nebulous aims of their government. But for some reason there were spend more resources to fight them then the true criminals that were running around everyday, terrorizing the people, resources that could have been used to actually make the seas save. But the truth was the World Government did not even had an interest in that.

They were only too powerful for the government´s tastes, too free thinking, not impossible to control. That was the true reason.

It had hurt to see his grandson get killed, but it hurt even more to admit that it had been for nothing, to admit that his entire life, he had been doped, led along and used to achieve the exact opposite from what he had wanted.

xxx

With Sengoku it had been different. For the longest time he had believed in the Marines and the World Government and their cause of absolute justice.

His breaking point was the cover up of the level 6 prisoners escape.

Absolute justice? what a joke.

They hide the fact that several unbelievable dangerous criminals had broken out and put the world in even greater danger.

They were the ones who forbade slavery centuries ago, but the World Government was involved into this business like nobody else. Thousands, maybe ten thousands had been working and living in chains in Mary Joa and in Tequila Wolf, that means until the revolutionaries freed that country.

They were the ones who to forbid research on the ancient past and destroyed an entire island because of it, justifying that with the claim that the ancient weapons were a threat to the world and should never be discovered.

A few years later, they were searching for the very same weapons themselves, planning to use them for their own purposes and as far as he knew nobody had ordered a buster call against Mary Joa so far.

They were the ones who claim that **every** criminal had to be brought to justice and were at the same time working hand in hand with criminals everyday,

Marines who were killing civilians as "collateral damage" and were allowed to continue serving.

The tenryuubito, holding slaves, running around and shooting people at random because they forget to bow down or just for having wrong colored shirts,

The shichibukai, a group of "tolerated" pirates who had a free card to commit every crime they wanted, as long as they don´t turn against the government,

Spandam and his little killer command, then that was the CP9, were was no mistaking about it. Rob Lucci murdered 500 prisoners and got away with it.

Spandam sent them to assassinate the mayor of Water7 because the man refused to hand over the plans of the Pluton, the infamous ancient war-ship. Several of the water 7 carpenters got killed in the process, men who did nothing but their job and he got away with it.

Eight years earlier he had stolen several automated battleships from the carpenter who later joined the Straw Hats and used them to attack a ship full of civilians, a clear act of piracy.

The best fact to get disillusioned about the World Government was that the chief of the cypher pol was a pirate himself. It was pure irony.

They had murdered pregnant women and children at the cheer chance that one of them **might **be the child of the Pirate King Gold Roger. And they didn´t even get the right one.

Everything was allowed, as long as you screamed loud enough that it was "in the name of justice".

Sengoku did it so himself often enough. He was the one who ordered the buster call on Ohara. After Gecko Moria was defeated by Straw Hat he transmitted the order from the World Government to kill everybody who had seen it, no matter if they were pirates, civilians or even fellow Marine soldiers, for the "crime" of coincidentally being there. And he did many other things over the years.

They were trying to bring **all** criminals to justice? Yes, all beside the one who were working for them.

It was all nothing but hypocrisy.

But for the longest time he didn´t see it like that. As long as he was in official service he excused everything with being for justice or for the best of the world, like so many others. He was caught in the net of the system he was part of and couldn´t see beyond it.

How could he have been so blind? He was truly an idiot.

It was true that they had stopped many dangerous pirates and saved many citizens in the process. But what did that bring when as many people where killed or enslaved by their own people instead?

What did it make for a difference if someone was killed by pirates, by cypher-pol or by the tenryuubito?

They were not different from the worst criminals in history, they were actually worse. At least them didn´t pretend to be something they are not and they hadn´t been committing crimes for centuries undisturbed.

It wasn´t until that he was retired that he finally began to see clear. What they had been doing the entire time. No more excuses and relativating.

He was talking to Garp more often, free talks, without the pulling of ranks or the need to say the political correct thing. They had talked about the things they had known, top secret or not, they had after all the same access to information as they were active, about their different missions and many other things.

There was no way to talk around it now, there were no more excuses. The World Government was just a menace that needed to be brought down. It was foul from the inside out and they both had been a part of it for far too long.

Justice will prevail? Yes and the marines would continue to serve it, but not under this government. They would not longer be a twisted parody of what they were meant to be.

A few months ago Garp had been contacted by his son Dragon, the man Sengoku had ones considered the most dangerous criminal in the world, something he saw much differently now. And Dragon had a plan.

The different officers had by now taken their seats on the table and were waiting for him to begin.

"A good day fellow marines," Sengoku greeted their guests. "I and vice admiral Garp have invited you to talk about an important matter. A matter that should not be discussed in public."

The irony of his last statement wasn´t lost on him. Nearly the same words had been used countless times to excuse the cover up of the crimes of the government.

"That we will show you will be hard to accept for many of you. It will challenge many things, you were thought to believe."

The officers before him were the ones who believed in justice, not the perversion the government was preaching. They would listen. Maybe they would not be able to convince all of them, but they would listen.

"Garp will now hand you over a number of documents and evidence that uncovers a nearly endless line of the most ruthless and vile atrocities you can imagine. But I want all of you to see the facts and come to your own judgement based of what you see."


	6. Chapter 6: Sanji

Sanji was currently fighting with one of Blackbeard´s crewmembers, the long haired guy named Abalo, one of the former impel down prisoners if he was not wrong.

He saw at the side of his eye that Franky was struggling with another one of this guys and Brook was fighting the tall white skinned one.

Blackbeard and his followers had taken them by surprise. The beginning of their fight was a complete chaos. Everyone was fighting everybody.

At least Luffy was able to take that giant out, he thought. Otherwise they would have had even more trouble.

Zoro of course had been fighting that swordsman Shiryu right from the beginning. It was somehow typical for him. He had not even fully recovered of his wounds from his fight with Mihawk and had already to go into a duel with another master swordsman, even if he was in no condition to fight in the first place.

Then Sanji saw his final move, a variation of his asura technique. Shiryu was hit with full force and blown into the air, he was out cold. In the next moment, Zoro went to his knees himself and lost conscience too, typical.

He had won, but he was taken out of the fight too.

Sanji saw that Nami and Robin were fighting back on back against the woman of Teach´s crew and their doctor.

He hoped that they were all right. For a few moments he looked in their direction to see how they were going.

In that moment Pizarro´s fist was punched into his face and a kick smashed him down to the ground.

Damn, he thought. Of course he had to think about the ladies and get distracted. That was typical for **him**, he admitted.

Sanji stood up again and looked angry at his adversary.

He answered with a series of kicks to Pizarro´s attacks. He assaulted his enemy several times, trying to bring him down.

Then the ground under their feet started to shake, again. It was Blackbeard who was using the goddamn gura gura no mi again. Sanji was caught off balance and took another hit from his opponent.

He saw the fight of the two captains. Teach was right now using alternately both of his devil-fruit powers. Luffy was fighting against it with a combination of dum-dum powers and haki.

Sanji knew it was time to end this.

Several of his crew-members had already fulfilled their dreams.

Luffy was Pirate King, he was the first to find the One Piece. He was the one who had first seen it after Gold Roger had hid it here years ago. Whatever happens, nobody could take that from him.

Zoro was the best swordsman in the world.

Robin had found her true history.

Franky´s dream that his ship will sail around the world will be fulfilled automatically if they made it even a little bit further.

And his,

the All Blue, he was short about to find it, he knew. As they had first entered the Grand Line he had seen a place where the streams of all four blues crossed themselves, Reverse Mountain, they flowed together into the Grand Line.

Sanji had been thinking about this in the last years. There had to be a second place where the streams of all oceans crossed. One at the beginning of the Grand Line, one at the end. The place where the stream that consisted of the waters of the four seas ended and separated again into the four Blues.

Whatever All Blue was, it had to be a short distance behind Raftael. He was nearly at his aim and he would certainly not loose now.

For the first time in years he used his hands in a fight and punched his enemy directly in the face. Pizarro was as surprised as anybody else would be. It was known everywhere that "Black Leg" Sanji never used his hands for fighting.

Then he used a kick to slam his enemy to the ground. But the former impel down prisoner of course stood up again.

They continued their dual. Sanji kicked him again and again, until Abalo Pizarro was finally lying on the ground, unable to fight anymore.

But then he felt his own knees going weak. He fell down and was about to be passing out. Exactly as Zoro a few minutes earlier, he realized.

Sanji had nearly laughed out. He was really nothing better as Zoro.


	7. Chapter 7 Garp and Sengoku II

The assembled officers had listened to Garp´s and Sengoku´s explanations and had red the documents the two had provided.

Commodore T-bone was sitting still at the table and was starring at the papers in front of them. Everybody was looking at him. They saw that the man was shaking from anger.

He had just red the files about the Enies Lobby incident, the uncensored files, not the usual ones the soldiers had access to.

Everything was written down in it, the Buster Call against Enies Lobby itself, the mission to get their hands on the plans of a super-weapon that could devastate entire continents, the assassination attempts on the mayor of Water 7 and Vice Admiral Onigumo´s order to destroy one of their own ships with over 800 marine soldiers on board during the battle.

"Murderers", he murmured. "How could they do something like that?"

They saw that T-bone had tears in his eyes and was crying openly.

It was known under the Marines that the level to that the Commodore cared about his soldiers was close to absolute eccentricity. He literally tried to take care about even the slightest scratch one of his subordinates had.

In this case however, nobody could really disagree. Eight hundred Marines murdered in a failed attempt to take out a single pirate. The truth was Garp didn´t even wanted to know what that fool Onigumo was thinking.

"You have all read the facts now," Sengoku stated, addressing the group of Marine officers. "I guaranty that there was nothing changed or left out in this reports. To be honest, this is probably the first time that one of you had ever gotten such a report," he told them sarcastically. "The question that you should ask yourself now is, what should we do?"

"My son Dragon is currently starting a great uprising, one that should bring the World Government down if it will succeed," Garp announced, "and none of us is in any position to stop it," he added, "but the question remains, should we even try? Is the World Government really deserving of any loyalty from us? After all I have seen in the last years, I don´t think so."

"Now you have decide what to do," Sengoku told them. "Don´t misunderstand me, I am not asking any of you to take arms against the government. But I don´t ask you to help them either. Remember, we are Marines our duty is it to protect the normal people from criminals and pirates and not to hold a certain leadership upright, even if we often tended to forget this in the past." He looked around to let his words sink in.

"The Revolutionary Army consists of the same citizens we all have sworn to protect and if they don´t longer want the World Government they have every right to replace it," Sengoku declared. In truth he could barely believe that he was actually saying this words. A few years back he couldn´t have imagined himself doing this, but the last years have changed a lot.

"You can try to protect the World Government, but I can tell you already that the rebellion is already starting and you won´t make much of a difference.

And even if you succeed, all you would reach is that everything would stay the same. People would still be enslaved or murdered. Or you can try to help us to keep order during and after the revolution and then we all can try to built up a better state," Sengoku told them. "That is now your decision."

All the Marine officers sitting on the table were looking at him and at Garp. They both were curious what their answer would be.


	8. Chapter 8: Smoker

They were walking through the canyons on the island Raftael.

"How should we even find them?" Tashigi asked.

The group of Marines had landed on the coast a few hours ago and were now searching for the Straw Hat crew.

"We will simply search the entire island if we have to," her commander, Vice Admiral Smoker answered her, "but as we know them, they will probably make a ruckus here that is impossible to oversee."

Tashigi had reached the rank of a captain by now and could if she wanted command her own troop of Marines. But she had decided to still follow Smoker who had been her commanding officer for several years now.

Also with them were Coby and Helmeppo, the former pupils of Vice Admiral Garp, both in the rank of lieutenant commander now and over a dozen regular Marine soldiers.

Vice Admiral Smoker had been hunting for Monkey D. Luffy for nearly three years today. He had been one of the few pirates who had ever escaped him and he followed him through the Grand Line to finally capture him. Over the time Smoker developed a certain respect for Luffy, but that didn´t kept him from trying to catch him. Quite the opposite, he wanted even more to bring that certain pirate in.

At the beginning their fights, if you could even call it that, were not even fair. It never was against a logia user you can not even touch.

In every confrontation Luffy´s attacks would simply pass through his body without truly hitting him. Until the pirate had learned to control his haki something like a fair fight between this two was not even possible.

But despite this advantage, somehow he had always managed to escape. Either someone was helping him or he had simply luck. Even worse became it for the Marine officer as Luffy had control over his haki. Now it became painfully obvious to him that his earlier victories were nothing then "luck" on his part. Without being untouchable he could barely hold himself against the pirate.

He had been defeated several times after meeting Straw Hat Luffy again after his two year break. Since then he had to bring himself to his limits to even being able to fight him.

Still he and his crew were able to confront the Straw Hats several times and it always ended in a tie. Nearly like Garp and Roger, he thought.

Tashigi had been after Lorenor Zoro for the same amount of time. At the beginning she, a sword-fighter like Zoro himself, wanted to defeat him and take his swords since she thought a pirate shouldn´t be allowed to use them. And she wanted revenge for the one time Lorenor defeated her and let her simply standing.

At least in the beginning. But many things had changed since then, many things.

Both Marines had silently to admit that they were possessed by the idea of hunting after their adversaries.

And today it would end, but not in the way they would have expected it. Many things had changed.

Smoker had to admit that he had never thought that the things would develop in the way they did in the last days.

Suddenly the ground under them began to shake.

"What is that?" Tashigi asked.

"I have there a suspicion," Smoker told her after a few seconds. He was smiling. The pirates were fighting, he was feeling it.

"Blackbeard," Coby said. Like his superior officer he could use his haki to make out their presence.

"Yes, that was the quake fruit that he had stolen from Whitebeard," Smoker replied.

Around them rocks started to break out of the canyon walls and falling down on them.

"Let us go out of here and then follow me. We are close to them."


	9. Chapter 9: Luffy II

Luffy could barely stand anymore. But at least he could see that Blackbeard wasn´t doing any better.

He was able to deflect the most of Teach´s earth-quake attacks with the help of his haki,

but not all of them.

And he was able to protect himself so far from the darkness fruit, partly also through the use of defensive haki, partly through simple speed. Luffy had taken a lot of damage, just like his opponent.

A few minutes ago he had hit Blackbeard with a giant fist. For a few seconds he thought it was over. But his opponent had managed to stand up again.

He had managed to protect himself from the attack, at least partly.

It wasn´t over yet. Luffy smiled.

He knew this was his last fight before he was Pirate King. Well, technically he already was. He was the first to find One Piece. But if Blackbeard defeated him now it would not mean so much. If he won everybody would see him as the king.

But he wouldn´t. Luffy punched him again in the gut with his full strength.

He would win today and return to his home island as Pirate King.

"Straw Hat," Blackbeard called out, "you wanted it like that. Now you will see what I am truly capable of."

Teach used the gura gura no mi again, this time it seemed completely unrestrained. The entire island was shaking around them. He had a strange blank expression on his face, as if everything beside defeating his opponent didn´t matter to him anymore.

Luffy saw that the porneglyph that they had found on this island, that was at the same time the One Piece, was starting to break apart under the earth-quake.

Strange, in a few moments he would have reached his live long dream of being the Pirate King. In some ways, he thought, he was nearly sorry that bit was over.

"Blackbeard," Luffy addressed him, "there is something that I wanted to say to you for a long time."

He went into gear 2 and used armament haki at the same time. Through the combination of this his limbs were standing in flames. This was the Red Hawk attack.

Teach was in shock, for a moment it was as if Ace was standing before him.

"This is for Whitebeard," Luffy yelled and hit his opponent in the face, "and this is for Ace." He punched him again, this time even harder.

Blackbeard´s body was slammed with impossible force into the stony ground. His impact actually caused a small crater around him. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were glassy.

This time, Luffy was sure, he would not be standing up again.

The new Pirate King himself was sinking to his knees. He saw now that his entire crew was in the same bad state as he was,but they had won.

It was over, he thought. He started to laugh.

"It is over", he screamed loud. "We have won."

Then he let himself fall to the ground. He was so tired that he could barely stand. It was by far not the first time that he felt like that, but maybe it would be the last.

Luffy and the entire Straw Hat crew set and lay down to rest.

xxx

They arrived a few minutes later. Finally they had found them.

The Straw Hat pirates were lying all over the place.

Luffy was on his back, breathing heavily and looking completely exhausted. Zoro was laying at a wall of rocks, wounded and tired out. Sanji was lying in some distance. Nami was sitting a few meters from them with her head hanging down.

Chopper was unconscious on the ground. The rest of the crew was in similar positions.

"I see we have finally found you Straw Hats," Vice Admiral Smoker said to them.

"Ah, hello Smoker. How are you?" Luffy greeted him.


	10. Chapter 10: Dragon

"_I see we have finally found you Straw Hats," Vice Admiral Smoker said to them._

"_Ah, hello Smoker. How are you?" Luffy greeted him._

_xxx_

"Luffy," Nami yelled at him.

Vice Admiral Smoker began to laugh.

"I see you are doing the usual thing," he said.

"Luffy", Coby called out and rushed to his friend, "it is good to see that you are okay."

"Coby," Luffy greeted him.

"You have actually made it," the young Marine said after a few seconds, "you are Pirate King."

"Hey had you thought I couldn´t do it?"

"No you convinced me a long time ago. Now I only have to become Admiral. As you see the half way I already have."

"Yes and you are still a good time away from it," Helmeppo commented.

The Marines were now looking at the unconscious bodies of the Blackbeard pirates who were lying around the place. A few of the soldiers were finally starting to put handcuffs on them.

"Are you going to arrest us too now?" Nami asked Smoker.

The Marine returned her glance for a few moments.

"You know", Smoker replied, "a few days back the answer would be quite different and yesterday I wouldn´t even know what to do."

"You are not arresting us?" Nami asked him.

"Believe me, I couldn´t even do it, even if I wanted. If I tried that now I would probably land in prison myself. Besides I certainly don´t want to arrest you."

"Really?" Usopp questioned sheepishly.

"Yes I admit you have all somewhat grown on me," the Marina said.

"That means Dragon did have succeeded, right?"

"Yes, since yesterday we have a new government in the making and it doesn´t consider you criminals, more likely heroes. The World Government is gone and I have to say, I am not exactly sad about it."

"No World Government anymore?" Luffy asked. "That means no tenryuubito?"

"No", Smoker said.

"And no killer squads like with Lucci?"

"No."

"And no insane Marines who kill innocent people?"

"Hey don´t get it too far," Smoker yelled.

xxx

Tashigi was seeing Zoro half conscious sitting at the site.

"I hope you don´t want me to fight you right now," he told her. "As you can see, I am not exactly fit."

She took a look at his bruised and out-battered form.

"Don´t worry," she replied. "Ahm, don´t misunderstand me," she said. "I certainly want to fight you again Zoro, but that has time now and it, how should I say?"

"You won´t try to lock me up, you won´t attempt to take my swords?" he asked.

She admitted, she felt quite ashamed right now when she remembered how she had acted sometimes. As a marine she thought it in the past to be not only her right but her duty to take precious swords from pirates and so called criminals, to keep this swords from "being used for an evil purpose".

Never would it have crossed her mind that her own purpose was actually far more "evil" than the one of many of this people. Her travels on the Grand Line however had opened her eyes over the time.

And never would it have crossed her mind that she was actually taking the possessions of this people. Many of the swords of them may have been stolen, but many other, like Zoro for example, had gotten theirs in an absolutely legal way

and while it was under sword-fighter a unspoken law that the winner of a dual could claim the sword of the loser as a price if he wanted, the fact that she actually went out to claim the sword of every fighter she personally deemed "unworthy" to wear them and thought simply being a Marine gave her the right to decide this, made her really not much better than a thief.

She had simply been too arrogant to see that.

"In one word, no. And Zoro, I am sorry, for many things."

He was a bit take aback by this, he wasn´t eve exactly sue why she was apologizing, but he replied.

"Okay."

xxx

"So this is actually the One Piece," Smoker said, looking at the now broken porneyglyph at the end of the valley.

"Yes," Robin told him, "but sadly as Blackbeard had used his quake powers it has been destroyed." The grieve was easy to hear in her voice. "It was the missing piece of our history and now it is simply gone."

A large break was was tearing through the entire object. The plate with the scriptures had been shattered to small pieces.

"What did it say?" Smoker asked her.

"It is actually a very long story. I had luck that I had the chance to read it all before Blackbeard appeared. The porneglyphs are telling us about the ancient kingdom that existed before the World Government came to power and this final one explains how this kingdom came to it´s end and what had happened then. It tells us how our world like we knew it came to be and with this knowledge we can put the information of all the other porneglyphs into context.

To put it short, this kingdom had covered the greatest part of the area that we know as the Grand Line today. It had been politically and culturally the greatest and most developed force in the world. But over time many of their citizens were growing arrogant. They thought they were better and above the people of the other countries. And they started to develop powerful and dangerous weapons, of which the most were luckily never realized.

This porneglyph tells us that the ancient kingdom had been conquered, pillaged and finally disbanded by an alliance of pirates and rebels. The leaders of this alliance divided the territory under themselves and formed 20 new kingdoms, declaring themselves kings."

"20 kingdoms," Smoker, Tashigi and Coby called out, nearly at the same time.

"That can not be, that is,…" Tashigi staggered.

"Yes, the World Government, a group of pirates and rebels. No wonder that they wanted to keep this knowledge secret at every price, like Ohara."

"Maybe that is all only a coincidence," Helmeppo suggested.

"No," Robin replied, "this conquerors were fighting under the banner of a dragon. They were also called the "army" or maybe "people of the sky dragon". You know how that can be translated.

"Yes," Smoker replied, "as tenryuubito."

"A group of survivors of the old kingdom fled to this island. Here they build the last and final porneglyph, as a memorial of their home-land and as a reminder for the future."

"A kingdom overtaken by rebels and pirates," Luffy commented, "hey, that's exactly what has happened again right now."

"Yes for that reason, it was also a warning for the future. The survivors who had fled to this island had realized the mistakes of their country. That was one of the reasons they had written it all down here.

The new World Government became very fast corrupt, cruel and arrogant and now it had gone the same way as the kingdom it had once destroyed."

xxxxxxx

Dragon stood in front of the burning town.

His troops had completely surrounded Mary Joa. He had hoped that this could be ended without even more bloodshed and the forces of the World Government would surrender.

But the soldiers inside the town had started shooting and the battle started, probably been ordered by the tenryuubito or some government official who was more interested in saving his own position when in common sense.

The battle was relatively quick but caused great chaos and damage. Now the city that had been the capital of the World Government was set up in flames.

"Iva," he asked his sub-commander Ivankov, "how is the situation in the civilian districts?"

That was a good question. Dragon himself had led the take over of the city core, where was the actual set of the government. In other parts of the town however, the one that were inhabited by the tenryuubito, the battle escalated into chaos.

"The situation is under control now. The last people are about to be evacuated," Iva answered him.

"Good."

Dragon knew that many of the tenryuubito had tried to flee and take so much of their money and their personal guards with them as they could. Others were that arrogant that they didn´t even bothered to stand up from their daily lives before Mary Joa started to burn.

His revolutionaries had freed all the slaves in the town, this however not in the organized and planned way that he wanted or even under halfway normal conditions, but in the face of absolute panic.

Dragon wasn´t even sure which idiot came to the idea to set the city on fire.

One of the freed slaves had told them that one of the tenryuubito had tried to burn his house down so that the "common people" wouldn´t get their hands on it. Of course the fire sprung over to the other buildings of the town. Blasted moron, he thought.

To save their lives it was necessary to free all the slaves at once and send them right trough the burning areas, at the same time that the revolutionaries were attacking and tenryuubito were trying to flee.

A few of the slaves had seemingly decided that they wanted the blood of their former masters before they left had armed themselves and gutted every world noble in sight. Some others had mixed themselves irregularly under his troops and were now fighting with them.

With other words it was the absolute chaos.

The battle was over now. Mary Joa was by now not much more than a glowing pile of ruins. For better or for worse, it was over.

Many people died here senseless. Some may have deserved it, but many did certainly not. But at least it was finally over, they had done it.

They had won the war. Dragon could only hope that they would be able to make it better and that the new government would never go the same way as the old one.


	11. Chapter 11: Pirate King

It was a strange picture for anybody who knew even the slightest about this two.

Luffy, the new Pirate King and Vice Admiral Smoker were sitting side by side on board of the Thousand Sunny and talking with each other like old friends.

And in some sense they were.

Like Luffy´s grandfather Garp and the first Pirate King Roger, this two had a long standing rivalry that was however coupled with a certain respect for each other.

Unlike their two predecessors however their relationship was meant to end up in a completely different way, since none of them would be executed.

Now with the fall of the World Government Luffy was not longer considered a wanted criminal and the hunt between this two was over.

It was pure irony that Smoker and Tashigi were now sitting with a group of people who they would have arrested only two days ago and talking with them as if it was a usual thing.

"And Straw Hat, what will you do next now?" Smoker asked him.

"Well,…" Luffy wanted to answer, but Nami fell him in the word.

"We will continue on our course right to the end of the New World," she told them.

"After Raftael?" Tashigi asked in surprise. "This is the last island of the Grand Line."

"Exactly," Nami replied, "it is the last **island** and now we hope to find the actual end of the ocean. And with that the access to the other seas." She smiled.

"Access, to the other seas?" Smoker asked confused.

"All-Blue," Sanji said in a serious tone.

Only a second later he complete changed his tune and was now fawning over the navigator.

"Oh Nami, you are so ingenious."

The two Marines only shook their heads about his behavior, being used to a lot from the Straw Hats.

"Remember the entrance of the Grand Line, Reverse Mountain?" Nami asked them. "Streams of all four blues were crossing there and flowing into the Grand Line. I am convinced here, at the end of it, had to be something similar, a place where the water of all oceans in the world is flowing together."

"And that would be the All-Blue?"

"Yes."

"I see you are not settling down, even if you are the Pirate King now," Smoker commented.

"You can count on that," Luffy yelled.

"We want to set sails very soon," Nami told them, "If there is nothing else?"

"Well, you still owe me a fight Zoro," Tashigi said forcefully, "but I see you are in no condition for it right now," she said one moment later, after realizing again in what state Zoro was.

"You have noticed," he replied sarcastically.

He was taking a look at her.

She was a bit different since they ha arrive in the New World, she was wearing a marine cloak instead of her old clothes, her hair was longer and in a different style, less than Kuina.

Maybe it would work and besides, if the "greatest swordsman in the world" could not even control his own fears, what was he worth?

"The next time we meet we will fight," Tashigi told him.

"Later then," Zoro answered.

"Later," she said.

xxx

The Thousand Sunny was ready to depart.

In a short distance was lying the Marine ship that would leave this island soon too. They had already brought the destroyed rests of the final porneyglyph or of the One Piece as it was called, on board. Like Robin had told them, despite it´s destroyed state it was still an infinitive precious treasure of history.

When they came back to Marine HQ they would deliver it to the new world government, together with Teach and his crew.

The truth about the history would soon be made public, like the truth about Ohara.

"We have finally found One Piece," Nami announced. "Now we will go to find the All-Blue and fulfill Sanji´s dream. If I am right, we will be able to return from there directly to the East Blue

and then you will see Laboom again," she told Brook.

"And then you will know every sea in the world Nami," Sanji said to her.

"Yes and the Sunny will have sailed on all of them," Franky yelled.

"Me Robin and Usopp have already fulfilled our dreams on the way here," Zoro stated.

"Exactly and now it is our turn," Sanji sneered at him, "do you get that ego-swordsman."

"If you say so dish-washer," Zoro answered.

At this point they were nearly ready to start another fight, before they suddenly both broke out into laughter.

"We will see us Straw Hat," Smoker said as the pirate captain had jumped on board.

"Yes, we will," Luffy replied. "There is only one last thing I wanted to do," he told the assembled group of pirates and Marines.

He climbed of the lion´s head in front of the Thousand Sunny, then he turned first to his crew, then in the direction of the beach.

"**I am the Pirate King,"** he screamed at the empty island, his own crew and the Marines alike.

The end

* * *

This story was written as an idea how I would imagine the final of One Piece to be.

Canon had already overcome a few of my theories. Aokiji leaving the marines for example was something I couldn´t have foreseen.

The "All-Blue", for this story, is an underground ocean that is located at the end of the grand line and connects it with the four other seas. It would be located directly below the Red Line at the same height and the opposite side to Reverse Mountain and works as the counterpart to it.

The Straw Hats will find it and return from there directly to the East Blue. But this will not be written because I have decided to end the story here.

The sequel to this story is "New Beginning".


End file.
